


Life after Death

by indigospacehopper



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Death, Drug Use, First Meetings, not as sad as it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 06:53:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20041729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigospacehopper/pseuds/indigospacehopper
Summary: Sherlock is surprised when he wakes up and realises he’s left his body behind him. Luckily, he’s not alone.Trigger warnings: accidental death and drug-use





	Life after Death

The needle pierced Sherlock’s skin and Sherlock bit his lip, his usually steady hand trembling as the pushed down on the syringe.

He hadn’t meant to overdose. Not this time, anyway. Maybe at a later date when he really was at a loss. For now, however, he was just bored.

He really _hadn’t_ meant to overdose.

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock cracked one eye open. He’d been lying across the floor.

God knew when he’d fallen, but he had, at some point, and his cheek was pressed against the cold, damp concrete floor. He sat up slowly, his head groggy and full of a dull buzzing.

“Well done.” A blonde man stood in front of him. He clapped slowly. “A brain like yours and you waste it on cocaine?” The man held up a clipboard, checking Sherlock’s face against it. He squinted, nodded, then made a note with a pen which Sherlock could’ve sworn materialised out of thin air. “Sherlock Holmes, 20 years old... full-time student, no part-time job. Next of kin is your older brother, Mycroft... right, that all seems to be in order. Come on.”

Sherlock stared at the man as he turned away. Everything was fuzzy, and the air felt strangely clean. Not at all like the incense heavy air he’d choked on when he’d first stumbled into the abandoned warehouse. That place smelt of weed, and piss, and altogether just wasn’t very pleasant on the nostrils.

Sherlock rubbed his forehead. He made to follow the man, pushing himself up off the floor slowly.

He didn’t realise at first that he’d left his body behind him.

Sherlock turned slowly, and yelped when he saw his skinny frame draped across a dirty mattress, lips parted slightly with the needle still sticking out of his arm, tourniquet wrapped tightly above it. The blonde man grabbed Sherlock roughly by the arms and shoved him away.

“Don’t look at that,” the blonde man said, checking his watch. “It’s worthless now, and you’ll just make yourself upset.”

Sherlock couldn’t draw his eyes away from it, however.

The blonde man sighed, scribbling something down on his clipboard.

“I told you not to look at it. Stop looking at it.”

“That’s...” Sherlock stammered. He felt like he was about to faint. “That’s... me. Is it me?” He asked dumbly. “I’m there but...” a thought struck him. “Am I dead?”

“Yes,” the blonde replied, unfazed by the question. “Now, come on. We’re going to be late.”

Sherlock stared at him.

“But I’m... dead. Holy… I actually did it?”

The blonde waited for the inevitable panic attack which came whenever a person realised they were dead, but was taken surprise when a grin seeped across Sherlock’s face.

“I actually killed myself? Nice. Now what? Is God real? And if so, which one? Where am I? How come I can still see my dead body? Who are you? Are you dead? How long have you been dead for? Why do you have a clipboard? Where am I going? Oh, this is so exciting!”

The blonde haired man stared at him in disbelief. He wore a white, smartly tailored suit and a golden shirt beneath it. The flame on the dwindling candle next to Sherlock’s corpse danced across it.

Sherlock looked him up and down for the first time. He’d been too distracted by the fact that he’d died to take the man in properly.

“Are you Elton John?” He asked hesitantly. The blonde rolled his eyes.

“Elton John isn’t dead.”

“But you are.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock smiled. The blonde was quite perturbed by how just much Sherlock was smiling at the prospect of being dead. It was very rare that a person was truly happy to be dead and Sherlock, well, Sherlock was acting like a child whose parents had just told him they were taking him to DisneyWorld.

“You were shot,” Sherlock said, still smiling. “Weren’t you?”

The man blinked. “How do you…”

Sherlock hummed, clasping his hands behind his back and rolling on his heels. “You have a limp, and seeing as you’re not Elton John no one would willingly wear that,” he gestured to John’s whole attire, “dead or alive. That and the clipboard, tells me that you’re supposed to wear that, there are rules. Where are there rules about what clothes you’re supposed to wear? A job. Easy. Now, if I’m not much mistaken, your job is to greet people who have died and ease their transition into the world of the dead. Correct?”

The blonde nodded dumbly.

“So, with any job I imagine there are different layers to it, different factions. There are people who will welcome the car crash victims, the people who’ll welcome the morally corrupt, the ones who died on death row. You’ve been tasked with welcoming me and honestly? I don’t envy you.” Sherlock chuckled darkly. “You commented on me wasting my life, suggesting that yours was unintentionally cut short. You’re stern. They wouldn’t give the job of welcoming crack addicts to life after death to anyone. They’ve got to be tough and unflinching. I imagine you’ve seen some sights.

“Now, back to the limp. When you’re standing your posture is fine, there’s no visual evidence of any injury. You forget your limp and the pain which causes it when you’re stationery, but when you walk it comes back in full force. It doesn’t really hurt. Psychosomatic limp. Does pain exist in the afterlife? Your death was traumatic, then, but not so traumatic that you can’t encounter dead bodies and people on a daily basis, suggesting that you faced death often while you were alive. You were a soldier. You were shot.”

The blonde man stared at Sherlock. “How did you…?” He started, then shook his head at the ground. “That was incredible. Yes, I was shot. Afghanistan.”

The blonde rolled his shoulder subconsciously. Sherlock smiled.

“Canon fodder?”

“Doctor.”

“Ah.”

“I’m John.” The blonde extended his hand for Sherlock to shake, which he did. “John Watson.”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

The corpse behind Sherlock drifted away, scattering like ashes caught in the wind. Sherlock didn’t watch it go.

“I know.”

John took a step backwards and ran his hands down his suit to straighten it out.

“Welcome to life after death.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I don’t know where this came from. I started writing and this is what happened.
> 
> I’m considering pushing this into a series if people are interested, so please don’t hesitate to let me know what you think! I’m quite excited to explore this world.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> \- indigospacehopper x


End file.
